ests of Jenghiz and his successors had spread not only over
China and the adjoining East, but westward also over all northern Asia,
Persia, Armenia, part of Asia Minor and Russia, threatening to deluge
Christendom. Though the Mongol wave retired, as it seemed almost by an
immediate act of Providence, when Europe lay at its feet, it had
levelled or covered all political barriers from the frontier of Poland
to the Yellow Sea, and when western Europe recovered from its alarm,
Asia lay open, as never before or since, to the inspection of
Christendom. Princes, envoys, priests--half-missionary,
half-envoy--visited the court of the great khan in Mongolia; and besides
these, the accidents of war, commerce or opportunity carried a variety
of persons from various classes of human life into the depths of Asia.
"'Tis worthy of the grateful remembrance of all Christian people," says
an able missionary friar of the next age (Ricold of Monte Croce), "that
just at the time when God sent forth into the Eastern parts of the world
the Tatars to slay and to be slain, He also sent into the West his
faithful and blessed servants, Dominic and Francis, to enlighten,
instruct and build up in the faith." Whatever on the whole may be
thought of the world's debt to Dominic, it is to the two mendicant
orders, but especially to the Franciscans, that we owe a vast amount of
information about medieval Asia, and, among other things, the first
mention of _Cathay_. Among the many strangers who reached Mongolia were
(1245-1247) John de Plano Carpini and (1253) William of Rubruk
(Rubruquis) in French Flanders, both Franciscan friars of high
intelligence, who happily have left behind them reports of their
observations.

Carpini, after mentioning the wars of Jenghiz against the _Kitai_,
goes on to speak of that people as follows: "Now these _Kitai_ are
heathen men, and have a written character of their own... They seem,
indeed, to be kindly and polished folks enough. They have no beard,
and in character of countenance have a considerable resemblance to the
Mongols" [are _Mongoloid_, as our ethnologists would say], "but are
not so broad in the face. They have a peculiar language. Their betters
as craftsmen in every art practised by man are not to be found in the
whole world. Their country is very rich in corn, in wine, in gold and
silver, in silk, and in every kind of produce tending to the support
of mankind." The notice of Rubruk, shre